Antoine Ignace Melling (1763–1831) was a painter, architect and voyager who is counted among the “Levantine Artists”. He is famous for his
venduteA veduta is a highly detailed, usually large-scale painting of a cityscape or some other vista....
of
ConstantinopleConstantinople was the imperial capital of the Roman Empire , the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire , the Latin Empire , and the Ottoman Empire...
, a town where he lived for 18 years. He was imperial architect to Sultan
Selim IIISelim III
was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1789 to 1807. He was a son of Mustafa III and succeeded his uncle Abdülhamid I . He was born in Istanbul. His mother was Valide Sultan Mihr-i shah...
and
Hatice SultanHIH Princess Hatice Sultan was an Ottoman princess , daughter of Ahmed III and consort to Grand Vizier Nevşehirli Damat İbrahim Pasha.- Biography :...
and later landscape painter to the Empress
JosephineJoséphine de Beauharnais was the first wife of Napoléon Bonaparte, and thus the first Empress of the French. Through her daughter, Hortense, she was the maternal grandmother of Napoléon III...
of France. His most influential work is published as
Voyage pittoresque de Constantinople et des rives du Bosphore.
Biography
Antoine Ignace (Anton Ignaz) Melling was born in
KarlsruheKarlsruhe is a city in the south west of Germany, in the Bundesland Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border....
in 1763. After the death of his sculptor father, Antoine lived with his painter uncle in Strassbourg (
LorraineLorraine is a historical area in present-day northeast France. Some of the main cities are Metz, Nancy and Verdun.-Lotharingia:Lorraine was originally an independent kingdom. It was created in 843, when the Carolingian empire was divided between the three sons of Louis the Pious...
). As a young man he visited his older brother, and studied Architecture and Mathematics at
KlagenfurtKlagenfurt am Wörthersee is the capital of the federal state of Carinthia in Austria. With a population of over 90,000 it is the sixth-largest city in the country. The city is the bishop's seat of the Roman Catholic diocese of Gurk-Klagenfurt and home to the Alpen-Adria...
. At the age of 19, he went to
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
,
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
, and finally
ConstantinopleConstantinople was the imperial capital of the Roman Empire , the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire , the Latin Empire , and the Ottoman Empire...
as a member of the
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n Ambassador's retinue and household with the aim of drawing pictures for various dignitaries. He was introduced to princess
Hatice SultanHIH Princess Hatice Sultan was an Ottoman princess , daughter of Ahmed III and consort to Grand Vizier Nevşehirli Damat İbrahim Pasha.- Biography :...
, sister and confidant of the
OttomanThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
SultanSultan is an Islamic title, with several historical meanings. Originally it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", or "rulership", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power"...
Selim IIISelim III
was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1789 to 1807. He was a son of Mustafa III and succeeded his uncle Abdülhamid I . He was born in Istanbul. His mother was Valide Sultan Mihr-i shah...
.
At Hatice Sultan's suggestion, Melling was employed as Imperial Architect by Selim III. In 1795 the princess commissioned Melling to design a
labyrinthIn Greek mythology, the Labyrinth was an elaborate structure designed and built by the legendary artificer Daedalus for King Minos of Crete at Knossos. Its function was to hold the Minotaur, a creature that was half man and half bull and was eventually killed by the Athenian hero Theseus...
for her palace at
OrtaköyOrtaköy is a neighbourhood, formerly a small village, within the Beşiktaş district of Istanbul, located in the middle of the European bank of the Bosphorus....
in the style of the Danish ambassador Baron Hübsch's garden. Delighted with the result, she asked Melling to redecorate the palace interior, and subsequently, a completely new neoclassical palace at Defterdarburnu. He also designed clothes and
jewelleryJewellery or jewelry is an item of personal adornment, such as a necklace, ring, brooch or bracelet, that is worn by a person. It may be made from gemstones or precious metals, but may be from any other material, and may be appreciated because of geometric or other patterns, or meaningful symbols...
for her.
Melling
Pasha'sPasha or pacha, formerly bashaw, was a high rank in the Ottoman Empire political system, typically granted to governors, generals and dignitaries...
eighteen years as Imperial Architect gave him a privileged opportunity to observe the Ottoman Court. He became more familiar with the Ottoman palace than any Western artist since
Gentile BelliniGentile Bellini was an Italian painter. Born in Venice, the son of the painter Jacopo Bellini, he was christened Gentile after Jacopo's master, Gentile da Fabriano...
. He made many detailed drawings of the Sultan's palaces, Ottoman society, and
venduteA veduta is a highly detailed, usually large-scale painting of a cityscape or some other vista....
of Constantinople and its environs. He was rightly known as "the unrivalled painter of the Bosphorus". As stated in an anonymous travelogue written in about 1817, "Sometimes these pictures contain an excessive amount of detail in an endeavour to reflect the reality but they depict the modern buildings and landscapes of this city, every view of which is attractive, in a manner more successful than that achieved in the most sensitive written descriptions." He worked in a far more realistic manner than
Matthäus MerianMatthäus Merian der Ältere was a notable Swiss engraver.-Early life and career:...
(1593-1650). Merian’s panorama engraving of Constantinople, published in 1653 and extensively reprinted, whilst claiming to represent the view of the city from the heights of
GalataGalata or Galatae is a neighbourhood in the Beyoğlu district of Istanbul, the largest city of Turkey, on the European side. Galata is located at the northern shore of the Golden Horn, the inlet which separates it from the historic peninsula of old Constantinople. The Golden Horn is crossed by...
and
BeyoğluBeyoğlu is a district located on the European side of İstanbul, Turkey, separated from the old city by the Golden Horn...
, depicts Ottoman capital as a city consisting only of minarets.
Paris
He returned to
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1803, and published a prospectus for the
Voyage pittoresque de Constantinople et des Rives du Bosphor. With the help of Talleyrand Melling was appointed landscape painter to the Emperor
Napoleon'sNapoleon Bonaparte later known as Napoleon I, and previously Napoleone di Buonaparte, was a military and political leader of France whose actions shaped European politics in the early 19th century.Born in Corsica and trained as an artillery officer in mainland France, Bonaparte rose to prominence...
wife, the Empress
JosephineJoséphine de Beauharnais was the first wife of Napoléon Bonaparte, and thus the first Empress of the French. Through her daughter, Hortense, she was the maternal grandmother of Napoléon III...
. By 1809 he had set up an engraving studio for the purpose of reproducing completed images of his drawings. A series of
facsimileA facsimile is a copy or reproduction of an old book, manuscript, map, art print or other item of historical value that is as true to the original source as possible using, normally, some form of photographic technique...
s were sent out to subscribers, between 1809 and 1819. Examples of etchings with engraving by Schroeder, Duplessi-Bertaux, and Pigeot after Melling, with later professional hand-colouring, include:
- Cérémonie d'une noce turque.
- Fontaine de Sari-Yéri, près Buyuk-Déré.
- Intérieur d'une partie du Harem du Grand-Seigneur.
- Kiâhd-Hané, Lieu de Plaisance du Grand-Seigneur.
- Prairie de Buyck-Déré; Sur la Rive Européenne du Bosphore, à quatre lieues de Constantinople.
- Vue de l'un des Bend, dans la forêt de Belgrade.
- Vue d'Aïnali-Kavak près de l'Arsenal, dans l'intérieur du port de Constantinople.
- Vue d'une partie de la Ville de Constantinople, avec la pointe du Sérail, Prise du Faubourg de Péra, Résidence des Ministres Etrangers.
- Vue de Hounkiar-Iskelesi, Echelle du Grand-Seigneur.
- Vue de Kara-Aghatch, au fond du port.
- Vue de l'embouchure de la mer Noire.
- Vue de l'Isle de Ténédos, dans l'Archipel.
- Vue de la grande Arcade de l'aqueduc de Baktché-Kieuï, et du vallon de Buyuk-Dèrè.
- Vue de la partie Orientale de Buyuk-Dèrè, Sur la Rive Européenne du Bosphore.
- Vue de la première cour de sérail.
- Vue de la Seconde Cour Intérieure du Sérail.
- Vue de la Ville de Scutari, prise à Péra.
- Vue du Champ des Morts, près de Péra.
- Vue du château des Sept-Tours, et de la ville de Constantinople, telle qu'elle se présente du côté de la mer de Marmara.
- Vue du grand Bend, dans la forêt de Belgrade.
- Vue du Village Tarapia, sur la rive européenne du Bosphore.
- Vue générale de Constantinople, prise du chemin de Buyuk-Déré.
Travels
His 1812 journey to the
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
(under French rule at the time) is documented by Melling not only by a large number of surviving drawings but also by the letters sent to his family in Paris. The joys and inconveniences of that journey, which took him as far as the Hanseatic towns, "are reported in a lively style". and relates various aspects of Dutch life; the monuments and inhabitants of large cities, like
RotterdamRotterdam ; city and municipality in the Dutch province of South Holland, situated in the west of the Netherlands. The municipality is the second largest in the country, with a population of 584,046 as of January 2007...
and
AmsterdamAmsterdam is the capital and largest city of the Netherlands, located in the province of North Holland in the west of the country...
, and the "overwhelming appeal" of villages such as
Broek in WaterlandBroek in Waterland is a town in the Dutch province of North Holland with about 2350 inhabitants. It is a part of the municipality of Waterland, and is situated about 8 km south of Purmerend and 8 km northeast of Amsterdam. In the 17th and 18th century, the town was a popular residence...
and the peaceful Sunday atmosphere of
ZwolleZwolle is a municipality and the capital city of the province of Overijssel, Netherlands, 120 kilometers northeast of Amsterdam. Zwolle has about 115,000 citizens.-History:...
. The illustrated and annotated letters, preceded by an introduction - like a travel diary intended for a
Voyage pittoresque - were never published. In 1815 he traveled with his daughter, drawing the capitals of all the French Departements, and visited Britain in 1817.
After 1821, he was sent by the French Government to document the
PyreneesThe Pyrenees are a range of mountains in southwest Europe that form a natural border between France and Spain...
and demonstrate that their natural beauty rivalled that of the
AlpsThe Alps are one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east; through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany; to France in the west....
. 72 fine aquatints, based on original sepia watercolours, were issued - together with text by
Joseph Antoine CerviniJoseph Antoine Cervini provided the text for: Voyage Pittoresque dans les Pyrénées Françaises et les Départements Adjacents, , Treuttel and Wurtz, Paris: 1826-30,...
- as:
Voyage Pittoresque dans les Pyrénées Françaises et les Départements Adjacents, (Picturesque Travels in the French Pyrenees and the Adjacent Areas), Treuttel and Wurtz, Paris: 1826-30, (Bibliographie nationale Française, BnF, The French national Bibliography ISBN 2-911715-12-8). Examples of hand-coloured aquatints from this work include:
- Port de Vénasque
- Le Pont d'Espagne
- Le Lac de Gaube
- Vue prise de l'Hôtel Gassion à Pau
- Le Perthus et le Fort de Bellegarde
- Le Lac de Séculejo et ses Cascades
- Grotte du Mas-d'Azil
- Site de la Vallée d'Aure
- Ermitage de Saint-Antoine de Galamus
- Fontestorbes
Legacy
The
Nobel PrizeThe Nobel Prize is a Sweden-based international monetary prize. The award was established by the 1895 will and estate of Swedish chemist and inventor Alfred Nobel. It was first awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace in 1901...
-winning Turkish novelist,
Orhan PamukFerit Orhan Pamuk generally known simply as Orhan Pamuk, is a Turkish novelist. He is also the Robert Yik-Fong Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where he teaches comparative literature and writing....
dedicates a whole chapter to Melling in his autobiographical memoir,
Istanbul: Memories of a CityIstanbul: Memories of a City is a largely autobiographical memoir by Orhan Pamuk that is deeply melancholic. It talks about the vast cultural change that has rocked Turkey - the unending battle between the modern and the receding past. It is also a eulogy to the lost joint family tradition. Most of...
. Pamuk claims that Melling
saw the city like an Istanbullu but painted it like a cleareyed Westerner.
On the occasion of the 700th anniversary of the foundation of the Ottoman State, correspondence between Antoine Ignace Melling and Hatice Sultan, between 1763-1801; was reviewed in a paper by Fréderic Hitzel - at the 1999 International Congress on Learning and Education in the Ottoman World. The International Congress organised by IRCICA in cooperation with the Turkish Historical Society and the Turkish Society for History of Science, with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey. The congress took place under the patronage and in presence of the
President of TurkeyThe President of Turkey is the head of state of the Republic of Turkey. In this capacity he represents the Republic of Turkey, and the unity of the Turkish nation; he ensures the implementation of the Turkish constitution, and the organized and harmonious functioning of the organs of state...
. 175 scholars and researchers from 28 countries participated in it. The papers presented - subsequently revised by their authors - are published in three separate volumes: Arabic, (Vol. 1), English, (Vol. 2), and Turkish, (Vol. 3), respectively.
Melling is included in the
Sabancı UniversitySabancı University is a private research institution located in Istanbul, Turkey. Founded in 1996, it is the only college in Turkey that offers a liberal arts undergraduate curriculum. SU is a small and highly focused university with 2789 undergraduates and 616 graduates, maintaining a strong...
Faculty of Arts & Social Science course:
Major Works of Ottoman Culture, (HUM 203). This course, "focuses on a selected few masterpieces of Ottoman artistic and literary production, picked on the basis of not only their high aesthetic qualities, but also their representativeness across different genres and historical periods".
The Ertug & Kocabiyik facsimile edition of the complete
Voyage pittoresque de Constantinople et des Rives du Bosphor was produced from the original "elephant folio", an unfolded first edition in the collection of Ahmet Ertug. The technical aspects of the project were done under the supervision of Ertug in Switzerland by facsimile specialists. This facsimile edition was available in two different bindings. One is bound in Japanese cloth and the other is a very limited edition of only 50 copies bound in leather - intended for connoisseurs of fine books. The binding and decoration of all the leather-bound copies were done by hand. The book includes 48 views of Constantinople in the late 18th century and also three maps. The facsimile publishers also offered 25 copies of an edition of the unfolded image plates presented in a leather-bound case. The text for this edition is bound separately and presented in a pocket in the leather case. The descriptions of the views in the facsimile edition are in the original French, with an English translation.
Sources
- Antoine-Ignace Melling, Lettres de Hollande et des villes anséatiques. La correspondance d'un artiste-voyageur avec sa famille à Paris en 1812. (Correspondence of an artist-traveller with his family in Paris in 1812). Presented and annotated by C. Boschma, Waanders, Zwolle/Fondation Custodia, Paris-1997.
- Report on the Ertug & Kocabiyik facsimile edition of the complete Voyage pittoresque de Constantinople et des Rives du Bosphor, by Souren Melikian, Istanbul International Herald Tribune, Friday, December 22, 2006.
- Voyage pittoresque de Constantinople et des rives du Bosphore,(Paperback, 350 pages), Antoine Ignace Melling, Adamant Media Corporation, (in French), ISBN 0543973182 ISBN 978-0543973184.
- Correspondence between Antoine Ignace Melling (1763-1801) and Hatice Sultan, Fréderic Hitzel, Session VII, C. Papers in English (Vol. 2): Proceedings of the International Congress on Learning and Education in the Ottoman World on the Occasion of the 700th Anniversary of the Foundation of the Ottoman State, Istanbul, 12-15 April 1999 in 3 volumes. 2000-2002, IRCICA Publications. ISBN 92-9063-090-6
External links